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| The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) |
I'll level with you, dear reader: this was not the post I had intended to put out today. In fact, I was in the process of writing another edition of the Recommendations series, focusing on LGBTQ+ films to suggest to newbies and matured queers alike for Pride month.
However, I became disparaged doing my research when it became painfully clear to me that there just aren't enough unproblematic LGBTQ+ films to recommend. And this angered me so much that we've come to the topic of today: how queer cinema has failed its community and how it needs to improve.
The Problem
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| Soldier's Girl (2003) |
There's a few issues to address but let's try and keep this concise: LGBTQ+ representation in cinema is built on the foundation of archaic stereotypes and, to be honest, that hasn't really changed. I personally didn't believe this to be true until I looked up queer films from the last three years and found that most of them showcase character studies that heavily rely on how heterosexual people see us (probably because they're the ones that keep writing/directing the damn things).
"But wait!", I hear you cry, "Atomic Blonde was really good! So was Bohemian Rhapsody! Are you telling me Moonlight isn't a good LGBT film?!"
Listen. Moonlight (2016) is an exceptional film. So is Atomic Blonde (2017). No, Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) wasn't good, get off my ass about it. But Moonlight depicts the brutalisation of a queer character (hate crime trope), Atomic Blonde is centered on a bisexual assassin (depraved bisexual trope) and Bohemian Rhapsody, as well as all of the other shortcomings, demonises gay people in a way that probably made poor Freddie turn in his grave (depraved gay trope).
There's this fixation in cinema on using these stereotypes as pivotal points but they're insanely harmful and unnecessary.
I wanted to recommend Brokeback Mountain (2005) until I remembered that they literally play into the 'bury your gay' trope at the end.
I wanted to recommend The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), a film that I have suggested before, until I rewatched it recently and discovered how poorly they handled the character of a trans woman (played by a cis man, to make matters worse).
I wanted to recommend plenty of horror films that now come across as downright problematic, due to their use of "gendered reveals" as a plot twist, which just comes off as horribly transphobic and homophobic.
The Solution?
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| Sleepaway Camp (1983) |
Abandon the tropes. Make new ones.
Hire queer writers and directors to make queer films. Make more LGBTQ+ content.
Normalise homosexual leads in films instead of basing the entire narrative on it.
Stop using gender and sexuality as a motivation: hell, stop pointing it out unless it serves some kind of purpose that isn't manhandled in an insensitive way.
You want recommendations? A Fantastic Woman (2017), a film focused on a trans woman who is played by a trans woman. Velvet Buzzsaw (2019), wherein a bisexual, male character is at the forefront of the narrative but isn't motivated by his own sexuality. You'll laugh, but Zootopia (2016), a fluffy kid's movie that stands as an allegory for how community and conversation can tear down homophobia, xenophobia and racism. I challenge you to fight me on that last one, honestly: if a kid's film can do it, then Hollywood's hotshots should be able to as well.
Is it so wrong of me to want to go into a film and see myself represented properly, and not chalked down to being "the psycho lesbian", "the depraved queer" or "the genderless murderer"? Or, god forbid, I'm able to go and see a film like Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013), a film that shows a young woman exploring her sexuality by engaging in a sexual/romantic relationship with another woman in an unforgivingly raw but honest way that doesn't demonise either person?
I wish that I had more films to offer you this week. In all honesty, it's saddening to see how far we've come in this community and yet how little we've created to represent that on-screen in a true-to-life way. I know we have Love, Simon (2018) and Call Me by Your Name (2017) but there shouldn't be tokenised films every summer to fill the queer quota: we deserve to be within the mainstream pool, not segregated to the side as the average hetero's fun, campy one-off.
- K
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